Pilgrimage
by Lostykitty
Summary: After the mage-templar war, a mage writes a letter to Anders, to thank him. OFC/OFC


**This fic contains discussions of the circles, and so mentions the abuses that took place there, but only briefly. Tranquility is talked about in more depth, although no characters in this fic are made tranquil.**

 **The section of the Chant of Light quoted in this fic belongs to Bioware.**

* * *

Dear Anders,

I feel weird just writing that. It's not as if you'll ever read this. Even if you did read this, you probably don't remember me. It's strange, to think how little an impact I must have had on your life.

Maker, I don't even know what to write. You should know that this wasn't my idea, but El says that while we're here I should write something to leave at the Sanctum. I asked why she didn't write something instead.

"You met him", is what she said.

Okay, so, because you probably don't remember me, here's a reminder: you saved my life. No, that's not right, you saved more than just my life. You saved me. You gave me the world and that is more than I will ever be able to repay you for, in a thousand years.

Shit, what am I supposed to say, thank you? How can that be enough? How can anything be enough for all that you have done for me, for our people?

El says I need to stop overthinking it. She's probably right but I can't help it. It's being here, back in Kirkwall. I guess it reminds me of other times, even if the Gallows are empty now. Even if the chantry, which declared our murders Just, is rubble.

I still don't know what to write. Perhaps I'll try again later.

I don't want to talk about me, so I'm going to talk about El instead.

El is the love of my life, and that's another thing I have you to thank for: you let me meet her. You gave me El and I found a home with her.

El isn't from Kirkwall, she's from Fereldan, like you. I was already an apostate when the circles fell, and that's when she left the tower. We met in Redcliffe, when I went to join the rebel mages.

I told them about you, you know. Told them about how you saved me. Not everyone there believed in you, but El did. She listened to me talk and I fell in love with her in the midst of a war that we've been fighting since we were born. Some people say you started it and most people say Fiona started it but this is the truth: we have always been at war with the Templars. We have always been fighting for our survival, but now they say the war is over and they say we won, and sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night I forget this, and I lie there waiting for the Templars to come for me, but her arms are around me, and I have never felt as safe as I do when she is with me.

Do you have someone like that? Do you have someone you can call home? I hope you do. I hear rumours about you and the Champion and I hope they are true. I hope you are safe and happy and loved. I hope you know that I am thankful every time I see her, and I hope you know that it's not the Maker I thank for her. It's you.

Thank you.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

I went back to the clinic today. Or, well, the Sanctum. I guess it's fitting I should be here; this is the first place I went when I escaped. Do you remember that, I wonder? Do you remember leading a frightened girl here, one who looked at Darktown like it was Val Royeaux? Do you remember how you sat her down on one of the cots, and told that she was safe. That she was free. That she never had to go back there again.

This is what your clinic looks like now, because I always have been better at talking about things other than me:

It's not a clinic anymore. I guess you could call it a shrine. People leave messages for you, like the one I'm writing now. Some one tried to write the names of mages killed in the gallows, but I think they've given up. Maybe they couldn't find any records going further back. Or maybe the list just got too long for them to bear.

It is far, far too long.

Someone wrote something on the outside wall once. I don't know what it was but I can guess. I won't write it here; you don't need to hear that, and I won't say those words to you. Not for as long as I live.

It doesn't matter, anyway. Someone painted over the hate, and wrote another message instead. Something I think you'll approve of:

" _I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation_ "

I'm not religious. Not really. I'll sing the chant, if you ask me to, and I go to the chantry, sometimes. When I remember. So I have no use for the pilgrimages people take, for the journey's to the Temple of Sacred Ashes, before it was destroyed. Or to Skyhold, now, to see the seat of the Inquisition.

But some of us - not all mages, and not only mages, but people from Kirkwall, people who know what happened here and who know what you really are - we have another holy site we can visit. And I'll tell you this: I have seen more love here than I have in any chantry I've ever been to.

You have made this a place where our belief won't be turned into a weapon and that is another thing I am thankful for.

Maker, this whole letter is a mess. I guess you must be bored of me saying thank you by now, right? It's true though.

Sometimes I dream about what would have happened to me if I hadn't left.

I'm not very good at magic. I'm not very good at anything really, never have been. So I knew what was going to happen to me.

They don't tell you anything about the Harrowing, but you see the tranquil, and you see the empty spaces, too. The places where an apprentice has disappeared from. People make up different stories about what happens to the apprentices who fail the Harrowing, but everyone knows that there are only two options for apprentices that can't pass the harrowing and I don't know which is worse.

I was going to die or be made tranquil, and everyone knew it. The other apprentices knew it, my teachers knew it, and nobody could do anything. Even some of the Templars felt sorry for me but it still wasn't enough and all I could do was wait for my worst fears to come true.

They were going to make me tranquil, they were going to take away my dreams and my thoughts and make me forget who I was, and they were going to cut me off from the Maker and can the tranquil return to him after they die? I might not be religious but there can't be nothing oh maker what happens to the tranquil?

and nobody would help me they were going to let it happen and then when they saw me what they turned me into they would pretend they didn't know me and I hadn't been one of them once and made me a cautionary tale and I shouldn't be angry at them they couldn't help and I would do the same in their shoes I did the same in their shoes I ignored what the templars were doing and then I listened to them call themselves righteous but that isn't righteous if they were righteous we wouldn't need rescuing from them and did I deserve what they would have done to me was that my punishment for ignoring other people I just wanted to stay safe andraste and the maker forgive me I was trying to stay safe

Fuck.

I can't do this, but I can't go back to sleep just yet. I need to write this now or I'll never be able to. I'll try to stay calm. If I focus on my escape I think I'll be able to.

In the end there was one person in the gallows who was able to help. I don't know her name and Maker forgive me for that, for not knowing who she is, for not being able to thank her and for not being able to spread stories about her the way I did about you.

All I know is that she's an elf and I'm a human and she had no reason to help me and I dread to think what might have happened to her if they found out she helped me. I pray to the maker that she's okay, that she didn't suffer for me oh maker what was her name?

Calm down. Tell the story.

She came up to me one day, and she said:

"You're going to die here, or worse. But I can help."

I didn't know what she meant then, but I said yes anyway. And then, later, she found me, and told me it was time for me to escape. I should have realised that that was the plan earlier, can't believe I didn't what else was she going to do ask the knight commander nicely? But when she told me that I was so afraid because you can't just escape. There are templars everywhere and how do you avoid them? What happens if they catch you? It must be horrible, worst than death or tranquility otherwise everyone like me would just run why didn't more of them run?

And more than that there is one fear that I am ashamed of to this day and this is something I will never tell anyone else for as long as I live. I was terrified of what would happen if everything worked. I stood there and I thought of all the places that I'd heard of and I started to realise how big the world must be to fit them all in. And I am so small, and what was I supposed to do in such a big world? I was certain that the world would swallow me up, and I was right. It did. I just didn't know then how wonderful that would be.

But the elf, my saviour, she just smiled.

"Don't worry," she said, "I've done this plenty of times. I have friends outside the gallows, they can help you."

She was talking about the Mage Underground. This was back when it still existed.

So I went. I don't know why or how I followed her when I was so scared. I think it was because she was the only person telling me what to do. So I followed her and she took me to a way out. A network of secret tunnels leading from the Gallows and into Kirkwall. And that's where I met you.

Okay, that's the worse part over with, I can breathe again now. I can't believe I managed to write all that. I don't think I would have, if the nightmares hadn't woken me up. I couldn't go back to sleep with the thoughts of me being made tranquil turning over and over in my head, and I don't want to wake El up. Alright, I'll get on with the story again now.

I don't remember what the two of you said, but afterwards you led me through the tunnels. I can't remember much of that, actually. I guess we didn't run into much trouble.

And then we were out of them, and I was free. And we were only in Darktown, but I stood there, laughing, because all I could think of was back home, in my village, and the way the grass smelled there, and that I would be able to smell it again. I guess it's a stupid thing to think of, grass, when you have the whole world in front of you, but there it is.

I have never told anyone about the grass. I don't know why I'm even writing it here, but I think you deserve to know why I was laughing.

After that, you took me to your clinic until I'd calmed down enough to leave the city, and then you helped me leave.

I went home. I know, it's what you're not meant to do, but I did. I kept getting lost on my way, though, so by the time I got there, the Templars had already decided I had gone somewhere else and had left.

Blessed are they who stand before  
The corrupt and the wicked, and do not falter.

I can't stop thinking about that part of the chant here. The words keeps repeating over and over in my head.

We're leaving soon, El and I. Maybe we'll go to Fereldan, and try to find our own home. Or maybe we'll build a life somewhere else, far away from our memories of the circles.

El has been learning about spirit healing. Maybe we'll try and help people, then. I'm still not sure. I'm better at magic now, though. El's been teaching me, and I've been improving. I don't think I'll ever be as good as her, but then, I don't need to be. I don't have any tests to pass any more.

We still have nightmares, though, like the one I had a few nights ago, when I wrote here. I can't really remember everything I wrote, so it's probably nonsense. I talked to one of the mages about it in Redcliffe, and he said that the nightmares might never stop. I guess we'll always remember what happened to us, and I'm not just talking about me and El, now, I'm talking about all of us. All of the mages in Thedas, or outside Tevinter anyway.I left my village because everyone there kept seeing me as the girl the Templars took away, but I'm not just a girl anymore, and I haven't been for a long time.

I'm a mage, and the war might be over but there's still more to do. I have El by my side now though, and I never let myself get close to anyone in the circle but there's no templars to stand between us any more.

I might take this letter to the Sanctum tomorrow, to leave it with the other messages people have left. Or maybe I'll just throw it away, I haven't quite been able to write what I want to tell you.

I have the whole world now and the thing I'm missing is words and I'm laughing and crying right now because when did I ever dream that my biggest problem would be words.

This is it, then. The end of the letter. Thank you, for everything. That's the only thing I know how to say.

Yours sincerely,  
The girl who wouldn't stop laughing  
(sorry about that)

I FOUND IT! I figured out what I wanted to say and sorry if the ink smudges or something but I don't have a lot of time so I'm writing very fast.

So, here it is, I have four messages except the first one doesn't count because you've heard it all before and I'm not going to write it out. I said I wouldn't, didn't I?

This is what some people say about you: Things that are wrong. Like I said, I'm not going to write them but you know what I'm talking about, don't you? So remember this instead: They are wrong. And remember this, too:

This is what my mother said, when we heard about Kirkwall, when someone started saying those wrong things about you, and when she thought I couldn't hear: She said , "I don't care what they say. He brought my daughter home to me, and Maker forgive me, compared to her I don't care about the people in that chantry. And maybe that makes me a monster, too, but maybe the world needs more monsters to protect the people like my daughter."

(My mother is not a monster, and that is a fact. So when people call you that, just remember this: My mother says she's like you in a way and she is not a monster, and that means you can't be a monster either, okay?)

And this is what El said, when she asked me about Kirkwall and I told her about you: "How many people do you think he saved?" And then she thought for a while, and then she said, "More people than he killed, don't you think."

(That is another fact, so you should remember that too)

And this is what I say, what I have been trying to throughout this letter but I only just found the words for: The Maker turned away from us and the Chantry imprisoned us and Andraste was used to light the fires that engulfed us but we had you instead.

We had you.


End file.
